Villagers suffer as authorities struggle to appoint ‘numberdars’

KARNAL: Delay in appointment of numberdars in many districts of the state is affecting people at the tehsil and sub-tehsil levels as a they are required for revenue and land related works at the tehsil levels.

The selection process, which generally starts after the death of an existing numberdar of a village, gets delayed as there are large number of applicants for the post and when someone gets selected, his appointment gets challenged in the court.

The sources said applicants for the post started increasing when the government fixed a cash honorarium of ₹1,500 per month and provided free travelling facility in state roadways buses for a numberdar, who are also called ‘chaudhar’ of village.

The sources said the process of lifelong selection of number- dar starts from tehsildar but in many cases it reaches to the high court and Supreme Court.

SS Phulia, outgoing deputy commissioner of Yamunanagar said, “The appointment of numberdar most of the times go through legal hassles if rest of the applicants do not agree with the appointed numberdar.”

THE SELECTION PROCESS

After death of a numberdar, the selection process starts with the announcement in a village and the tehsildar begins the procedure with approval from deputy commissioner, who is also called collector in this case.

Tehsildar invites applications from the aspirants and also send the file for police verification.

Though there are no specific requirements for the appointment, but there are some merits which have been fixed which include educational qualification, experience of revenue department and land deeds, land holding of applicant, social works done by the candidate and he/she should not hold any illegal possession on panchayati or government land. However, the officials said the son or grandson of the deceased numberdar gets preference but there are no certain guideline for this as well.

“I had applied for the post after death of my father in July , but I don’t know when the selection process will be completed as the case is pending at the office of naib-tehsildar in Indri of Karnal,” said Madan Lal, a post-aspirant in Dhanokheri village of the district.

APPOINTMENTS GET DELAYED AS THERE ARE LARGE NUMBER OF APPLICANTS FOR THE POST